Yay – a spam conviction

A car company that sent text messages to people after copying their mobile phone numbers from classified advertisements has been fined under Australia’s new Spam Act.

Carsales.com.au was fined $6600. The authority ruled that the recipients of the messages had no relationship with the car website and did not give their consent to receiving the text messages.

It is the first time that text message advertising has been caught under the new law, which came into effect last year.

Also the ACA has raided the premises of what appears to be a major league spammer in Perth.

The ACA say they had received reports alleging “thousands of unsolicited e-mails” from the company and further investigations suggested this was “only the tip of the iceberg” and that tens of millions of messages could be involved.

These are both good news on the spam front.